The Year Without Any Guardians of Childhood
by Prince Pondincherry
Summary: Set after both Rise of the Guardians and The Year Without a Santa Claus, this was written as a dark story about a possible way Rise of the Guardians could interact with another weather-themed Christmas movie. Warning: darker than my other story, although there is a happy ending, since a lot of the charm of the Guardians is how they pull through adversity.
1. Chapter 1

The first time they knew something was wrong was when the snowstorms hit. Granted, snowstorms were normal, but these were not normal snowstorms. In any given year, some snowstorms would be blizzards, causing death and destruction, and some snowstorms would be of the gentler variety, providing just enough snow to get kids out of school and let them have snowball fights and build snowmen. This year, all the snowstorms were of the hostile kind. Some scientists theorized that global warming had caused more devastating storms through increased summer evaporation. Others used the increase in storm intensity as an argument against global warming. People all throughout the northern climes felt the effects, but nobody was devastated more than one 32-year-old snowboarding champion in New York.

He was out camping with his 5-year-old daughter when the blizzard hit. It was so cold that the car was unable to keep running, and it sputtered to a stop.

"Why are we stopping, daddy?"

"Don't worry, Jack Frost's just playing a trick on us."

"Dad, I'm scared."

"Nothing's going to happen to us. We're going to have some fun." As he looked at the snow piling up outside, an idea formed in his mind. "I think it's about time for you to learn to build an igloo."

It took a long time to build the igloo in this cold-too blizzard. When they got inside, he had frostbite on his fingers, toes, and nose. Even worse, his daughter wasn't shivering. He huddled close to her to warm her up and gave her a granola bar so she would have enough energy to begin shivering again.

"Daddy, we're going to die, aren't we?"

"Honey, I met Jack Frost, and he told me that I and my family had nothing to fear from the cold. We'll be fine."

**Four days later**

"The good news is we were able to save one of your legs."

"My daughter. Is she alright?"

"I'm sorry, but she had frozen to death by the time we got there. There was nothing we could do." He let out a scream of rage and frustration.

"Why, Jack, why?!"

Things only got worse as time went on. First, children stopped getting money in exchange for missing teeth. A few days after that, everybody stopped having dreams.

**Easter Afternoon**

I'm telling you, this is just like that time when Easter didn't happen when we were kids. The Guardians were in trouble then and you didn't believe me. Why won't you believe me now?"

"Okay, even assuming that something happened to the Easter Bunny and the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, who's to say it wasn't Jack Frost who did it, like you said before?"

"I changed my mind. Jack wouldn't do that. Something must have happened to him too."

"Oh, really? Jack's always been reckless and wild. What about that time you almost got run over?"

"I was fine!"

"Your tooth was knocked out by a sofa!"

"That was it, and I got a quarter for it! Jack risked his life standing up to the bad guy to protect me and the other Guardians. He can't be the bad guy now."

"Jamie, HE KILLED OUR DAUGHTER! Is that bad enough for you?"

They were quiet for a while. Then Jamie replied meekly, "I don't think that was him. Maybe he forgot to watch over us at the time, or was preoccupied somewhere else. Or maybe he was captured or killed. But the one thing I know for sure is that he'd never hurt a child. Which means something probably did happen to him if he allowed such a horrible winter to continue this long. I have to go to the North Pole to make sure whatever happened didn't take out Santa too."

"Are you insane? You have a prosthetic leg, and you're going to go off on this wild adventure!"

"I have to. Think of all the kids who are still out there and who don't believe in the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman. Remember how horrible that was for us! I won't let it happen to my sister's kids too."

Over the next few months, Jamie worked out and got himself back into adventuring condition. He also made all the necessary preparations for an Arctic expedition; from the usual ones, like assembling supplies and a team, to the decidedly abnormal preparation of buying an automatic assault rifle and learning how to use it. He claimed it was for protection from polar bears, and people put it down to the insecurity of a man who had already lost a leg.

All this time, the weather got worse and worse. The winter deepened, and snow began to fall farther and farther south. The worst famine in history struck the globe as crops were killed off by the cold. Not too many people died, as it was the most industrialized nations that, being the farthest north, were the hardest hit, and they subsisted on stored food, but it was only a matter of time before the stores ran out. The whole time, Jamie maintained that Jack Frost wasn't responsible, but he was starting to wonder-who else could it be?

In early September, Jamie and his expedition made it to the North Pole, where they found a horrible sight. The gates of North's workshop lay askew, but the inside was even worse. Frozen yetis and elves littered the floor next to destroyed toys. Jamie noted with a little bit of hope that North's body was not among the frozen corpses. He had escaped or been captured. Either way, there would be no Christmas this year.

That night, Jamie's expedition slept more warmly than they had in a long time. They had found some firewood and used it to make a bonfire. Jamie stayed up long after the rest of the crew had fallen asleep in exhaustion. Staring at the moon, Jamie asked, "What now? Do we just sink quietly into another Ice Age? With the Guardians gone, our children are screwed, and it seems that this endless winter is going to screw the adults as well." He paused. "Is it Jack who's doing this? I don't see how it could be, but I can't think of any other possibilities." Just then, a snowy gust blew through the roofless ruin of a room they were sleeping in. Jamie caught something that fell from the remnants of the second floor-a Russian nesting doll. It had the harshly frozen face of Jack Frost on it. "So it is him? No, it can't be." Jamie opened the doll. The next layer was a smiling boy with a cast on his arm. "Sure, Jack is reckless, but he's not evil...is he?" The innermost layer was a baby, smiling and playing. "Jack would never hurt a child, I'm sure of it!"

Jamie heard a log collapse in the fire and turned to put another one in. He gasped in shock as he saw one thick branch with a flame on the top floating in a beam of moonlight. It floated toward him, and he reached out and grabbed it at the unlit base. A huge flame shot from the top as he touched it. He noticed with some surprise that the fire didn't seem to be consuming the wood while burning on it. Jamie pointed the torch at a patch of ice and concentrated. A burst of flame shot out. "Cool!" Jamie said. "Although this could be kind of hard to carry around all the time, particularly once I get home," he said to the moon. His torch morphed into a flashlight. "I get it," Jamie said. "The British call flashlights torches. Clever." He pushed the button on the flashlight, and it turned back into a torch, although he noticed it still had a button on it. He planted the torch in the ground and went to sleep.

On the way home from the expedition, Jamie though really hard about what he should do next. He decided to get himself on a news channel after most kids had likely gone to sleep and make an announcement to the world. After an introduction by a newscaster, he began, "This will be disturbing, so if there are any kids still awake, PLEASE go to bed." After a significant interval, Jamie showed pictures of North's destroyed workshop that he had taken on his expedition. "Whether or not you believe my pictures, and whether or not you believe that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Sandman, and Jack Frost are real, it is a fact that Easter didn't happen this year, it is a fact that children aren't being rewarded for lost teeth anymore, and it is a fact that nobody can dream. When I was a kid, Jack Frost told me that even if we couldn't see them before, they'd always be in our hearts. He also told me that that sort of made us Guardians too. I say that we should be the Guardians for our children. Sure, this winter is awful, but we can't allow that to remove the hope, joy, wonder, and fun from our children's lives. If we remember those, humanity can find a way through this ice age. So let's make Christmas for our children, our future!"

Jamie's message was spread around the globe. Without North, it wasn't as special as normal, but it was enough to preserve wonder in children despite the widespread hunger and cold. And on December 26, Jamie woke his wife up with his shouts of excitement.

"What is it?" she moaned.

"I had a dream! I know what I need to do now!"


	2. Chapter 2

Jamie prepared to go on a quest. In his dream, he saw that the Heat Miser, the surly nature spirit who brought hot weather to the world, had been imprisoned, his powers limited. Now Jamie had to travel to his lair, a volcanic island in Kiribati, to free him.

All flights north of Arkansas had been cancelled due to the fierce winter, and few braved air travel north of Florida. The nation's train companies experienced a boost in popularity as the few people who didn't just stay home embraced them as the safest way to travel for short distances and the only way to travel long distances.

Arriving in Florida, Jamie took an extremely turbulent airplane ride across several stops to Kiribati. Finally, he had to take a small boat on the last leg of the journey. Shockingly, they narrowly avoided running aground on icebergs. The boatman left the island as quickly as possible, anxious to get home.

As Jamie cautiously entered the tropical jungle that covered the island, he noticed another person sneaking through the jungle. He took out his torch and converted it to its wood and fire form. He shot a small fireball vaguely in the direction of the other person, reasoning that the dripping wet tree it hit would be fine apart from some scorched moss. "Show yourself!" he demanded.

Jamie was taken aback as Jack Frost stepped out from behind a tree, staff in hand. "I can't believe it! It was you the whole time!" He leveled his torch at Jack. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't melt you to a puddle right now for killing my daughter!"

"It was Pitch! He came back, and he was working with the Heat Miser."

"Last I checked, the boogeyman couldn't control blizzards!" Jamie accused angrily.

"They were going after the other Guardians. I had to freeze the Heat Miser to turn the tide, but I was busy fighting Pitch when your daughter froze. Please forgive me."

There was a long pause. Then Jamie slowly drew the torch back. "All right. What happened to the others-the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, and Santa? And why did you freeze Santa's workshop and all the yetis and elves?"

"Pitch got the elves and yetis to revolt against North, so I had to fight them. Unfortunately, he and the Heat Miser killed the other Guardians before I could stop them. I'm the only one left now. I finally managed to beat Pitch, so it's safe to unfreeze the Heat Miser. As much as I hate to say it, the world can use a little less frost about now."

"That's for sure. I'll come with you." They began walking through the thick jungle.

"Where did you get that nifty torch?"

"The moon gave it to me."

"Amazing. Does that mean you're a Guardian now too?"

"It feels more like it's a temporary thing, like he gave me a tool to fix the current problem."

"Ah. Darn, I don't much look forward to doing this by myself. Although I noticed Christmas still happened this year."

"Yep, that was me. I figured there was no reason parents couldn't organize Christmas themselves. Got to save as much wonder as you can, you know."

"Well, it worked. Christmas weakened Pitch enough that I was finally able to beat him, so I'm here now. Speaking of which, how did you know to come here?"

Jamie was suspicious. Earlier, "Jack" had said that the Sandman had been killed, but Jamie had had a dream the night after Christmas. In fact, it had been that dream that had led him here. So he decided to keep this one secret. "As soon as Christmas was over, the moon told me to come here. I guess you're going to need some help. Maybe some of Pitch's Nightmares are still around. Speaking of which, why didn't anybody have nightmares like last time?"

"I think we got rid of them all last time. The way Sandy explained it, Pitch can't actively make dreams; he could only corrupt Sandy's. And once Sandy was dead, there were no more dreams to go around."

The jungle was thick and hard to walk through, making it a two-day journey to the Heat Miser's volcanic layer. Jamie and Jack made camp for the night.

Unfortunately, Jamie had actually been right: "Jack" wasn't who he claimed to be, and he waited until Jamie fell asleep before crawling towards him to kill him. He frowned as he passed Jamie's torch. Something seemed weird about the fire, which was burning the stick to a stump, but he couldn't quite place what it was. As he hovered over Jamie, about to stab him in the heart with an icicle, he realized what it was: the torch was magical and would never burn the wood. Jamie had hidden the real one!

Jamie's eyes snapped open. He pulled the real torch from his pocket in its flashlight form, transformed it back to a wooden torch, and shot a blast of fire at "Jack," who began to melt and jumped backwards. Jamie kept blasting fire at "Jack" as he stood up. "When I learned I needed to rescue the Heat Miser, I naturally researched as much about him as I could, and I found out about the perpetual rivalry, which the boogeyman must have exploited. The legends didn't mention anything about your shapeshifting powers, though, Snow Miser."

As the last of his disguise melted off, the Snow Miser stood up. In place of Jack's boyish face, he had a harsh, unforgiving face made of hard lines and scowls. Instead of Jack's tousled silver hair, he had solid white hair sticking up in the form of an icy peak. The most drastic difference was in the eyes-where Jack's were twinkling with laughter and fun, the Snow Miser's eyes were hard, uncaring pits of black. He shot off a blast of cold, stopping the fire from Jamie's torch, and let off a harsh cackle. "So, you figured me out. No matter. You'll never succeed where all the Guardians failed."

"What did you do with the real Jack?" Jamie demanded.

"Don't worry, Jack Frost is nestled comfortably in the permafrost."

"Nooo!" Jamie unleashed a continuous blast of fire. The Snow Miser put up shields of ice, but Jamie melted them all. Finally, the Snow Miser turned and ran, shouting back, "You think you've won, but you won't make it through the night!" As he faded into the jungle, a hundred 1-foot miniature copies of him popped out of the jungle and began shooting ice blasts at Jamie, who planted his torch in the ground. A ring of fire surrounded him, protecting him from the ice, but he could feel the air around him cooling as some of the blasts penetrated. Apparently, the torch had limited power.

Looking around for an idea, Jamie noticed the painfully obvious jungle. Quickly lifting his torch from the ground, he unleashed a pulse of fire that temporarily drove the miniature Snow Misers back. Then, he spun, shooting fire at the trees, bushes, and vines around him. A huge jungle blaze sprang up, melting enough Snow Minis that he was able to get the rest himself. He watched as the fire spread farther and farther out. Satisfied with his handiwork, Jamie figured out how to trigger permanent ring of fire mode as an extra safety measure before going to sleep.

The next morning, Jamie continued forward through the smoking ruins of the rainforest. Finally, he entered the volcano through a cave in the side. As he made his way inside, he noticed that, unusually for a volcano, it was getting colder the farther in he got. Finally, he emerged into the lava chamber. The lava pit in the center was frozen solid, and a whole horde of Cold Minis was laying down a continuous layer of frost. Jamie attacked, surprising the first ten Cold Minis with a sheet of flame before they could react. After a hard-fought battle, he finished off all the Cold Minis in the lava chamber. He could feel the torch running out of power-it felt like it recharged over time, but he was using it too quickly. Reasoning that the lava must be able to melt the ice on its own if the Cold Minis felt it was important to continuously refreeze it, Jamie left the lava chamber and kept looking for the Heat Miser. With some luck, any Cold Minis in other parts of the volcano would come here to try to make sure the lava would stay frozen.

Jamie encountered no more resistance until he found the Heat Miser, who was frozen solid in front of an enormous anteroom full of frozen Heat Minis. Next to the Heat Miser stood the Snow Miser. "Kudos to you for getting this far, but you'll get no farther." He blasted a wave of cold at Jamie, who fired a beam of heat. This time, the drained torch was overpowered by the Snow Miser's attack, and the flame winked out of existence. With two quick cold blasts, the torch was knocked out of Jamie's hand and frozen to the wall, and Jamie's legs were frozen to the ground. "The man on the moon should have known better than to challenge my power with his own," the Snow Miser said, slowly forming an ice ball between his hands. "Earth based spirits such as myself are far stronger than him as long as we are on Earth." When the ice ball was about 1.5' in diameter, he flung it at Jamie's head.

Nicholas Saint North charged into the room and knocked the ice ball away with his sword. "So, North, you escaped Pitch. I'm not really surprised. No matter; you won't escape me." As the Snow Miser spoke, twin ice spears former in his hands. At his last word, he raised one, and the tip rapidly extended toward North, who parried with one sword and charged.

The Tooth Fairy flew into the room. "Jamie, are you okay?"

"The torch!" She flew over and began pulling it, trying to dislodge it from the ice.

The fight was not going well for North. Eschewing his spears, the Snow Miser fired a blast of cold at North, freezing his arms and legs in place. As the ice rose towards North's face, the Snow Miser gloated, "Defeated again, North, only this time there's no Sandman to save you."

"I did not need to beat you. I was only distraction." In horror, the Snow Miser looked up and saw that both Jamie and the torch were missing. He turned around.

"Hello brother." The Heat Miser stood behind him. His skin was bright red, his vibrant red hair was in the shape of a flame, and his eyes burned with a heat from within. He breathed out, and a jet of flame flew toward the Snow Miser, who ran from the room, shrieking. Then he defrosted North and the army of Heat Minis behind him.

"Mr. Sun," North acknowledged.

"I guess I should thank you three," the Heat Miser said to North, Jamie, and Tooth.

"If you could send him packing that easily, how did he beat you in the first place?"

"The boogeyman was with him. Normally my fires could drive away his shadows, but when he was helped by my brother..." Steam literally came out of his ears. Suddenly, a scowl crossed his face. "Get out of here before the eruption. I need to let off some steam."

As they walked out, meeting up with some yetis who had been fighting the Cold Minis, Jamie said, "Ungrateful bastard."

"Both of them are like that," North said. "Unfortunately, the only ones who can really keep them in check are each other."

"So, where did you two come from so suddenly? Perfect timing, by the way."

The Tooth Fairy began, "The Snow Miser had us trapped. He tried to freeze us, but he couldn't overpower Sandy. We were trapped, so Sandy couldn't make dreams, I couldn't collect teeth,"

"Bunny couldn't make Easter, and of course I couldn't make Christmas," North finished her sentence. "We all tried to break out for a while, but it was no use."

"When the kids stopped believing in us, we gave up. It's a good thing Sandy isn't weakened by loss of belief, or we would have frozen for sure. But one day I started flying again. Children were believing in me again."

"And after Christmas, I got my powers back too. I have no idea why."

"I had something to do with that one, and with you getting your powers back," Jamie said, directing the latter statement at the Tooth Fairy. "I got all the parents to do your jobs so the kids would believe again. Of course, it didn't work nearly as well as what you do, but it must have been good enough if you got your powers back."

"And that was very helpful. Mr. Snow had gotten careless, so I was able to break us out."

"Sandy said he'd hold them off while we got away. We haven't heard from him since, so he must have been captured or frozen."

Jamie interrupted, "That makes sense. I had a dream that told me to come here on the night after Christmas, but that was the only dream I had. He must have sent me that one before the Snow Miser got to him."

"We needed reinforcements, so we went to the North Pole," North said, "but it was trashed. Everything frozen."

"I know, I saw," Jamie said.

"Pitch knew I would go there, and he trapped us," North said. "I fought him"

"while I fought his Nightmares," Tooth said.

"Wait, he actually had Nightmares?" Jamie asked. "But nobody had dreams at all, not even nightmares!"

"We think the Snow Miser wouldn't let him give people nightmares. He likes paralysis and 'freezing' people out of doing anything with their lives," Tooth said.

"Pitch was beating us, but I convinced him that Mr. Snow didn't want to let him rule the people in fear. He just wants to kill all the people. Pitch let us go 'just this once.' Luckily, a lot of the yetis and elves escaped, and they found us before we starved. We harnessed the reindeer and flew here on the sleigh."

"So what happened to the Easter Bunny and Jack Frost?"

"Bunny escaped with us, but he wasn't ready for battle after losing Easter, so we left him in the sleigh with a yeti. Jack was the first one to disappear. Where he is...we don't know," North said.

"Our best guess is that he's frozen somewhere. He should be fine if we can find him and thaw him out. Last we heard he was making a snowstorm in Newfoundland."

Their first stop was the place they had been kept prisoner. Jamie defrosted the Sandman, and they headed to the yeti camp. Then, they marched to the North Pole. The boogeyman was still there, but he ran away when he saw the force they had mustered.

"I can't believe how much this place was trashed," Jamie said.

"We can rebuild!" North thundered. "But first, we need to get Tooth home." While the yetis secured the perimeter, the rest of them got back on the sleigh and took a snow globe portal to Tooth Palace. The main spire was frozen with all the Baby Teeth trapped inside. A squadron of Cold Minis was maintaining the prison. The team flew in to disperse them. Sandman pulled them off of ledges with his whips and flung them off into the space, while Tooth dropped them from Tooth Palace's towering spires. North slashed at them with his dual swords, and Jamie melted them with his torch. They were defeated in no time at all, allowing Jamie to melt a hole in the ice wall. He left the rest to melt in the sun. The Tooth Fairies resumed normal operations.

Jamie, North, Sandman, and the minuscule Easter Bunny watched the proceedings. Suddenly, Jamie's torch floated up towards the moon and dissolved out of existence. "I guess I'm not needed any more."

"I'll have the elves out looking for Jack as soon as I get back," North said. "It's not like they could help rebuild anyway."

As they watched Tooth going about her work, Bunny complained, "Of course nobody believes in ME. Why am I always the one who loses his powers?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't think to fake the holidays until well after Easter," Jamie said.

"It's too bad I couldn't make Easter happen early this year. The world could use some hope and a new beginning now that the ice is melting and the storms are calming."

"You're right. I have an idea," Jamie said.

Banking on his fame as the one who had made Christmas happen without Santa, Jamie got himself on a talk show as part of a special about how the eternal winter was abating. He told the world, "So I think we should have Easter early this year to commemorate a new spring for the world. Obviously, we can't move the religious holiday, but we can have Easter egg hunts early. And this time I have the personal assurance of the Easter Bunny that all the eggs will be hidden next Sunday." All the children believed that he had actually spoken with the Easter Bunny, while all the parents thought he was encouraging them to run their own Easter. Of course, this time the kids were right, as their belief made the Easter Bunny strong enough to make Easter happen. On the day that was to be Easter this year, parents around the world snuck out to set up egg hunts for their children, only to find that eggs were there already!

That night, there was a small storm that put a light dusting of snow on the ground. Jamie and his wife went out to dinner to commemorate saving the world. While they were eating, a window opened, letting in a gust of cold air, and a snowflake landed on Jamie's nose. He looked outside and saw Jack Frost leaning on his staff, smiling.

**Author's Notes:**

**My versions of the Miser brothers are a bit more malicious than in the original movie, but they are mean in that movie, and it's not too much of a stretch to think that they would want to expand the influence of their chosen element without concern for how it would affect humans.**

**You may notice I made reference to a bit of headcannon of mine: that Jack and Sandy don't need belief to function properly. Because Jack was obviously really powerful before anyone believed in him, and how many kids have even heard of the Sandman, let alone believe in him?**


End file.
